Runner, Runner

by Ayon Ibrahim

Earth has become a dangerous world to live in. Bandits prowl the harsh, ruined landscape, preying on the weak, while toxic, lethal weather sends even the bravest scurrying for cover. Of course, being able to worry about those meant that you hadn’t died of hunger or thirst yet – impressive feats on their own.

And then there are the Runners. Fast and seemingly immortal, these beings of shimmering light are the greatest mystery of the land – and maybe its newest danger.

31 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 16, 2017

Reviews

[Netanella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly good for a short story, and by a newbie independent author at that! Short stories are, in my humble opinion, harder to write than longer novels, in that there's a finite amount of pages that the author has to convey their story - character, setting, plot - all of these things needs to be shown without the fatal use of info-dumping. Here Ibrahim does a stellar job with "Runner, Runner," a post-apoc tale of a young girl growing up in an irradiated world, the surface world dangerous, blighted with radiation, and desolate. Growing up with a group of families in underground caves and allowed out for only short, supervised periods of time, she glimpses beings of light that seem to flash and move across the empty landscape. Who or what these light elements are is a recurring theme in the book as the girl comes of age in this story. The author has created a very interesting world, which I hope will be further explored.